In a unique experiment, a hybrid international-national court — the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC — is prosecuting the remaining top Khmer Rouge leaders – Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, and Khieu Samphan — for mass atrocity crimes carried out during the Pol Pot regime of 1975-1979, which killed millions of Cambodians. The ECCC allows victims to join the criminal proceedings as civil parties, and nearly 4,000 are participating in Case 002. The clinic has provided legal support to Access to Justice Asia (AJA), a civil society organization that represents over 100 civil parties in Case 002. In November 2011, the Case 002 trial got underway. The clinic partnered with AJA and the Center for Justice & Accountability(opens in a new tab) to release a policy brief urging Cambodia’s UN-backed tribunal to comply with international criminal justice practice and grant reparations to civil parties. The report, “Victims’ Right to Remedy: Awarding Meaningful Reparations at the ECCC,” calls on the court to revise its legal interpretations that led to its rejection of nearly all reparations requests in the first Khmer Rouge trial. It recommends that reparations be examined at the start of the current trial and not treated as an afterthought. In spring 2012, clinic students assisted AJA in trial preparation, which included travel to Cambodia to conduct fact-finding.
During the 2009-10 academic year, the clinic assisted AJA in its representation of members of two separate ethnic minority groups: ethnic Vietnamese and Khmer Krom victims seeking to have the four defendants prosecuted for genocide. In October 2009, clinic students traveled to Cambodia to interview witnesses in preparation for their legal request, filed in December. The judges denied the victims’ request and clinic students assisted in filing an appeal. In April 2010, the Court issued its order which reversed, in part, the initial decision and ordered that some victims join the criminal case against defendants. In fall 2008, clinic students wrote Cambodia’s Search for Justice: Opportunities and Challenges for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. This paper reviews the development of the ECCC and analyzes problems it faces in trying leaders of the Khmer Rouge. The analysis of the ECCC in “Cambodia’s Search for Justice” complements a study of public attitudes toward the court by U.C. Berkeley’s Human Rights Center. The Human Rights Center report, So We Will Never Forget: A Population-Based Survey of Attitudes about Social Reconstruction and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, was released in January 2009.